Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler

I am working on a “shop sample” of the Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini, inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts novels. The quilt at right is the one pictured in her book. The shop I teach at – Quilting Bits and Pieces in Eudora, KS – is doing the entire quilt, all 140 blocks, as a block of the month. Well, more like 5 blocks a month. They are doing it in 2 color ways. I am doing the “True Blue” color way, the fabric line by Benartex designed by Eleanor Burns. The other color way is Hoffman Christmas fabrics. I am not sure which I like better, but they have both been extremely popular at the shop.

Here are the first 5 blocks. I added a couple of pinks to the mix, as well as adding some additional medium greens and dark blues.

I am doing all the appliqué blocks using fusible web and will edge stitch when I quilt. They are just too darn small! The medium blue sashing fabric is not from the True Blue line, and is just a dab darker than one from the line. I am using pimatex antique white for the backgrounds.

I have redrawn each block in EQ6 so that I can calculate both rotary cutting and foundation piecing measurements. I am writing additional instructions to go with each block to help out those who are not as experienced putting together some of these blocks. You would have to buy the book to do the kits, but some of the instructions are very brief. I am keeping a notebook with my drawings and notes so I remember what I changed! :-)

Several blocks I have redesigned or changed the construction method from the directions in the book. I always try to simplify if I can, or come up with a better way to be accurate.

These are 6” blocks and they are kitting them at the shop, so I have to be very accurate in my fabric calculations. I am a bit generous, because I don’t want anyone to run out of fabric in their kit.

Here are the second set of blocks.

The Lemoyne star block was redesigned to be paper-pieced in the Carol Doak technique. She divided 8-pointed stars into 8 triangles by making seams in the corners and centers. It adds seams but is way more accurate and has no “Y” seams.

The second block down – the one with the green squares and yellow star – was rotary cut. But the measurements were given to the nearest eighth of an inch, but accurate piecing required measurements at sixteen of an inch. I remade that one twice to get it right. Didn’t quite reach the points when I added the sashing, and cut off the points on the Chinese coins block (2nd to last).

The most difficult block so far is the third one down, the spinning star with the pink center. Yipes, it was a booger! You start with a partial seam then sew on triangle segments which are very tricky to accurately align. Won’t be making THAT block again any time soon!

Here is a close-up of each block:

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Month 3 is in the album above. I redesigned the grandmother’s flower garden block in month 3. The book only had a center and six petals, so I decreased the size of the hexagons and added a third row around the yellow. The hexagons are 5/8” and really came out cute in the block. I English paper pieced the hexagons and put the block together by hand. I glued it to the background fabric with Roxanne Glue Baste and blanket stitched by machine around the block once I pulled out the cardboard templates. Then I cut out the back of the white background to decrease the bulk.

I just finished month 4. I don’t have the blocks made yet but here are the blocks and fabric selections.

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This has been a fun project so far, lets see if I am still saying that when I get to block # 139. . . .?!?!

Seminole Patchwork Sampler

I have been working on this Seminole Patchwork Sampler recently, and today I taught a class on how to do Seminole Piecing at my local quilt shop.  Two wonderful students, Jane and Linda, participated in the class and we had a wonderful time learning the cutting and piecing techniques for these fabulous bright strips. The bands were made by members of a recent small group who each made a band from a pattern designed by Barbara Siedlecki and hosted on the Quilter Community.  Each quilter made one of the 7 bands.  In exchange, I made a block of their choice for each of the 7 group members.  I put the bands together this spring and finally got the binding on it today.  The tiny piping was made with the Piping Hot Binding ruler by Susan Cleveland, which is wonderful in getting that tiny little piping to go perfectly between the border and the binding!

OK, as you can probably tell, the binding is on but I am still sewing it down. . . Alas, I am kinda slow with binding. 

Here are the strips we worked on today in class:

We ran out of time  before we got to make our fourth band.  But we did cover all the basic techniques in the first three bands. It was a great class and I want to thank Linda and Jane for making it so fun and Quilting Bits and Pieces Quilt Shop in Eudora, KS for hosting it.

Guild Presentation in Topeka

On August 11, 2009 I will be doing a presentation on EQ6 at the Topeka Capitol Quilters Guild. I am so looking forward to this presentation as I will have the chance to meet some friends I swapped with some years ago. I always love talking about EQ6 also, and all the incredible designs tools it offers to quilters. If you are in the Topeka, KS are on Tuesday night at 7 pm, stop by and say hi!

Midnight Posies Block 7 now available

Wow, it is nearly August and I can hardly believe how quickly each month slips away. But its time to release Block #7 for my free BOM Midnight Posies. This block starts the 3rd row of the quilt and steps up the difficulty of the blocks just a little by adding some additional techniques.

The Carnation Block adds some bold red and gold to the quilt and introduces “Quick Corners” and “Flying Geese”. Both techniques are super easy and accurate. If you want to keep the carnation all red, choose a 3rd shade of dark red for center instead of the gold. It will really look like a carnation then. Or you might want a pink carnation and choose more pink or magenta colors for your carnation. Whatever you choose it will be gorgeous.

This simple block is essentially a nine-patch, and goes together very fast. Watch your color placement! As in all my blocks, it is the color placement and contrast which makes these blocks look more complicated than they actually are.

You can download the PDF pattern for this block here . I hope you enjoy this next block in the series. And as always, I would love to see your pictures!!!!

Back From Texas Retreat

I spent a wonderful weekend at the Cabin Quilter’s Retreat in Houston last weekend. What a wonderful place! Great new friends, great old friends (well, not THAT old) and wonderful eats, conversation and quilting. If you can still get a date, the retreats at the Cabin Quilter’s Retreat are first class. I worked on a set of swap blocks while I was there and put them up on the design wall behind me. It was fun the see the pattern emerge as I added more and more blocks to the wall.

One Afternoon the neighborhood Peacocks stopped by for a minute to munch on Four O’Clock seeds by the front door. This lovely lady posed for me as she was cooling off in the shade. I kept hoping I would see a flamingo but this is as close as it got to a tropical bird!

Now I am off to Ohio to visit with my dad for 2 weeks and get some serious work done on my next pattern. Thanks for coming along for a visit.

Beach Birdies Quilt

UPDATE: Kits are available for this quilt at Quilting Bits & Pieces in Eudora, KS. There are only a few left, so you probably better call them if you want one!

I finished the quilt top for the Beach Birdies panels and fabric (by Moda) and delivered it to the quilt shop yesterday. After a few glitches with the borders I finally got it all together. I used a narrow inner border with green and black to echo the dropped shadows and then added a Finney Flap and a 6” large border with Kaffe fabric.

I took this pic with my phone since I didn’t have my camera with me at the shop last night. I’ll post a better picture next week when I can get back to the shop with my camera.

What is a Finney Flap you ask? It is a little 1/4” flange, like piping only without the cording inside, between the inner and outer borders. You can see it better in this close-up.

It will be a while before I quilt it since it will hang in the shop for a while. I just love the Christmas Flamingos. I only had a few of the fabrics from this line to work with so I added a few of my own fabrics from my stash. I love using black pimatex. It is thin but has a high thread count. Much nicer than Kona black in my opinion. Here are the 4 fabrics I had from the Fabric line in addition to the panel.

I am patterning the design now and will have it available for sale next week. If you would like the pattern It will be available for download (email) for $5.00 or a print version (snail mail) for $8.00. I will only offer the pattern as long as the fabric is available. Let me know if you are interested.

I am working on a tote bag next and will post a pic as soon as I get that done. This has been so fun! Have a great Holiday Weekend.

Midnight Posies Block 6

I love the beginning of each new month – it means I get to post another new block for the Midnight Posies BOM! This month’s block is called the Star Flower Block. It is based on a simple friendship star with an extra blue violet triangle in each corner. It reminds me of a larkspur, the July flower of the month!

You can download the PDF instructions here.

You now have the patterns for the first two complete rows of the quilt. If you want to start assembling the blocks. . . . I know, I get excited and can’t wait to see how they look together . . . here are the directions for the sashing! You will want to save these instructions for later if you wish to continue assembling the quilt as you go. I will post complete sashing and border instructions along with the last block so you won’t miss out once all the blocks are made. Hope you enjoy this next installment of our BOM.

Cutting List for Sashing
Cut (5) 2” strips of black (WOF) for sashing
Cut (5) 5 ½” strips of black (WOF) for borders
• From the sashing strips, cut eight (8) pieces that are 9 ½” long. You will use these to join
the blocks together into rows.
• Make four rows of blocks with three blocks
in each row. Arrange the blocks as shown in
the illustration or create your own arrangement.
• From the remaining sashing strips cut three
(3) strips that are 30 ½” long. You will use
these to join the rows together.
• Press all sashing away from the blocks.

Farwell to Wilma

This was a sad day.  My beloved gray cat  -- Wilma -- who has been my companion and pet for 14 years died today from lung cancer.

   Wilma and Betty are sisters and have been close since I got them as kittens.  It was hard to watch my big lovable kitty drop from 13 lbs to 8 lbs over the past month, and see your lustrous gray coat look shabby.  When she quit eating a few days ago and noticed her breathing was becoming more labored I knew something was very wrong.

I took her to the vet today, and after seeing her x-ray showing massive lung cancer I made the decision to have her put to sleep.  I held her and petted her till the end and kissed her good-bye.  Betty is still around and in good health, but is sitting on my feet while I write this.  I think she knows her sister is gone, and misses her already.

Thanks for sharing this sad moment with me as I mourn the passing of my little furry friend.

Purple Flutterbye Auction Mini

After making the first butterfly quilt I had blocks left over so I made this little cutie for the guild mini auction.  For some reason I had a lot of purple butterflies left so I framed them in various shades of purple but used a blue binding to bring out the blue a bit.  I added tiny black piping around the border just to accent the black in the blocks and the sashing.  It was auctioned off today. . . will have to find out who bought it and what it sold for.  I still have 8 more butterflies left. . . yes most of them are purple!!  hehehe. . . so I will make one more mini, only this one I will keep.  You can’t see it well in this picture, but I did tiny little McTavishing inside each block, and quilted tiny little feather antennae for each butterfly.  You can see details if you click on some of the photos below.

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UFO Sewing day

What a fun day! Three of my quilt friends came over today to sew. We try to meet every month to work on UFO's, but we also love to visit and catch up, do some show and tell, and of course, EAT! I made a big chicken salad and the other girls brought melons and peach crisp. YUM

This is the project I worked on today. These fun panels are Christmas Flamingo’s. I am putting together a top as a show sample and today I was working on figuring out connectors between all the blocks. I framed them all with black and prints, then a second white frame. They are still on my quilt wall so I will try and finish this tomorrow. It is sort of a challenge since I am making it up as I go along! I’ll post a “finished” picture when I am done.

The other fun thing we did today was go to the Ottawa Piece Maker’s Quilt Show! (Ottawa, KS not Canada). I had 8 quilts in the show, but there were lots of gorgeous quilts there. Here are pictures of the quilts I had in the show.

“Monet Monet” A Bargello Quilt I made in a class with Tony Munoz	“Cats in Candy Land” The blocks are from Claire’s Cats
Color Wheel Quilt – I designed and made this quilt as a teaching tool for my color class	Flamingo Calendar Quilt from a wonderful fun swap
Halloween Bag O Blocks Quilt	In Da Go Sampler Swap Quilt
Vintage Moments Quilt done in 1930’s reproduction fabrics	Winding Ways Quilt made from a John Flynn precut kit.

What a great day. . .Good friends, good food, good fun, and a great quilt show. Ahhhhh, what more could a girl want?

Ok. . . .Tomorrow I will post the next block in the Midnight Posies BOM. There’s something to look forward to!